Personal Trainer
David Lloyd Fitness
Huw D
00:00:02 Hi, my name’s Huw D, I’m a Personal Trainer and an Aerobics Instructor, and I work for David Lloyd in Milton Keynes. I spend my time with my clients on a one to one basis. The idea is that I can help them achieve their goals on a much more personal level. So you get people coming to you with various different goals, and it means that they’re more likely to achieve their goals because they’ve got someone there to motivate them, and to actually check that they’re doing the right thing, and they’re doing it in the right way. First time a client comes back to me and says – I’ve achieved my goals – there’s nothing more that – that you can really do for me anymore because I’ve got as far as I can go. It’s the best feeling in the world, to know that you’re the one that’s got them to that point, and that without you they wouldn’t have done it. Absolutely fantastic.
00:00:51 When I was at school I was very very sporty – games or sport was certainly my favourite, and by far and away my best subject. I’ve always been a rugby player but – well it’s always been my main passion – but you play so many different sports, and it’s something that really helps when you’re coming into this job, if you are a really active person. I completed my A-Levels, and decided that going to University and doing something that everyone else wanted to do, wasn’t going to be for me. I decided that I wanted to re-enrol in college, and that I wanted to do a Sports Science diploma instead.
00:01:26 My first gym was actually quite a local gym, and it’s a good way to start – or I found it was a really good way to start off, in a smaller gym, and gradually progress through your levels and through your gym sizes. When you work in a smaller gym – it’s a much much smaller close-knit community, and you get the basic skills that you kind of need as a Gym Instructor and then a Personal Trainer as well. Little things like going and talking to members which is a huge thing, you need to be quite an outgoing person, and it gets you off on the right idea of – I need to go and talk to people, I need to go and sell myself, and sell what it is that I do.
00:02;02 I want to progress further within my personal training. I’ve managed to reach a point now where the only thing that I do is personal training and classes. All I’m looking to do now is to continue to further my knowledge, and to go as far as I can within that. From an Aerobics point of view, ideally I want to become a National Trainer, and to be able to train people coming through, that are looking to become instructors.
00:03:10 While I was still working within a gym I was also still playing rugby, at that time I was playing for Northampton Saints, and then I went to play for Bedford Blues. Unfortunately I managed to break my neck, and that then managed to become a serious point as to what I was then going to do as a career, and move on from that. You have different vertebrae through your neck. There are seven of them, my C4 vertebrae, it’s cracked, and I have a hair-line fracture that runs through and into the bone. Yeah, it was hard to get over. It got to the point of – I didn’t want to watch rugby, I didn’t want to have anything to do with it. Just because it would be so frustrating, especially if I was watching someone who I’ve played for, it would really start to get to me. Especially if it was losing, because it was – well what could I do to change the game? And it was definitely a frustrating time. It’s one of those things where, if you work your way through it, and you do – you do come out the other side of it, same as anything, but you have to have something to work towards and certainly striving – and then striving to become the best Personal Trainer I can be, has really really helped to focus my energy onto something, and to really move forward from that.
00:03:38 Definitely wanted to be a rugby player – still do want to be a rugby player – something that won’t happen now. It’s – I’ve now been marked off the books so I’m not allowed any more. It’s just – it’s a medical record thing, it follows you round, and it means you won’t be re-signed, with a record like mine. But it does mean though that it means I can concentrate a hundred percent on now what I want to do within the fitness industry. Rather than me achieving my own goals, it’s getting other people to achieve their own goals, and it’s just as much of a buzz if not more.
00:04:06 ENDS
Huw is passionate about sport and gains real satisfaction from supporting others to achieve their goals. A serious rugby injury when he broke his neck led him to re-assess his life and he works hard to stay at the peak of fitness.
More information about Fitness instructors
The UK average salary is £29,813
There are 37.5 hours in the average working week
The UK workforce is 47% female and 53% male
Future employment
- Assesses the fitness levels of clients;
- Devises programmes of training appropriate to the needs of clients with varying levels of strength, fitness and ability;
- Demonstrates and leads fitness activities and supervises exercise classes;
- Ensures that clients do not injure themselves through over exertion or using incorrect training techniques;
- Plans and monitors personal fitness schedules;
- Understands the health and safety aspects of different forms of exercise and ensures that any statutory requirements are met.